Abstract
Nigeria has a lot of natural and man-made tourism potentials, which include: architectural edifices, Traditional/Contemporary drama, water falls, masquerade festivals among many others. These tourism potentials, if properly harnessed and sustained could be marketed for tourism and huge economic gains. Masquerade festivals in particular, appear to be one of the most neglected tourism events in Nigeria. The emergence and fast growing pace of the home movie industry in Nigeria, popularly known as Nollywood and the lackluster attitude of government, researchers and students toward traditional theatre are gradually forcing masquerade and the entire traditional theatre into extinction. This study is thus a conscious effort aimed at digging up the hidden treasures of traditional theatre in Nigeria and presenting its aesthetic and economic potentials to the global theatre landscape. A descriptive and qualitative research approach was employed in the study. It is hoped that this study will lead to a revival of interest in traditional masquerade festivals in Nigeria and reawaken a consciousness toward this direction.
Highlights
Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries in world
World Tourism Organization (WTO) defines tourism as Activity or set of activities embarked upon by people who travel to, and stay in places outside usual environment for more than twenty-four hours and not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to exercise of any activity remunerated from within the place visited.[1]
Nigeria has plenty of natural and man-made tourism sites. These include, architectural edifices, water falls, masquerade festivals among many others. These tourism events, if properly harnessed and sustained could be marketed for huge economic gains
Summary
Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries in world. Tourism and hospitality industries have become the most important economic activities globally in the spirit of post- modernism and the increasing transformation they offer. Nigeria has plenty of natural and man-made tourism sites These include, architectural edifices, water falls, masquerade festivals among many others. Masquerade Theater, among the Igbo of Nigeria is an evidence of their culture and the sum total or their ways of life from the ancient to the present time. Some early colonial ethnographers and anthropologists showed a lot of interest in African masquerade theatre and prized the genre highly above others artistic genres in Africa [4] This notwithstanding, there has not been sufficient conscious efforts to encourage the Mmanwu theater, in order to ensure its continuity. African theater is a valid evidence of the people’s culture and the totality of their ways of life over a given period These include their socio-political and economic milieu, their philosophy and ethics as well as their historical development. It is on these bases that the study proposes an Annual/Contemporary Mmanwu festival for Anambra State Ministry of Information and Culture in the spirit of restoring meaning to things that are fast becoming meaningless, as Simeon Njom suggests; let us navigate the contradictions of this new century[6]
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